e graciously
offered peace, with the assurance that "France would not cede a stone of
her fortresses--an inch of her territory? She would pardon the
invaders and not march upon Berlin!" To all these, and many more such
incontestable proofs, that the idea of a siege was moonshine, did
Enguerrand and Victor listen as they joined group after group of
their fellow-countrymen: nor did Paris cease to harbour such pleasing
illusions, amusing itself with piously laying crowns at the foot of the
statue of Strasbourg, swearing "they would be worthy of their Alsatian
brethren," till on the 19th of September the last telegram was received,
and Paris was cut of from the rest of the world by the iron line of
the Prussian invaders. "Tranquil and terrible," says Victor Hugo, "she
awaits the invasion! A volcano needs no assistance."

CHAPTER XII.

We left Graham Vane slowly recovering from the attack of fever which had
arrested his journey to Berlin in quest of the Count von Rudesheimn. He
was, however, saved the prosecution of that journey, and his direction
turned back to France by a German newspaper which informed him that
the King of Prussia was at Rheims, and that the Count von Rudesheim was
among the eminent personages gathered there around their sovereign. In
conversing the same day with the kindly doctor who attended him, Graham
ascertained that this German noble held a high command in the German
armies, and bore a no less distinguished reputation as a wise political
counsellor than he had earned as a military chief. As soon as he
was able to travel, and indeed before the good doctor sanctioned his
departure, Graham took his way to Rheims, uncertain, however, whether
the Count would still be found there. I spare the details of his
journey, interesting as they were. On reaching the famous and, in the
eyes of Legitimists, the sacred city, the Englishman had no difficulty
in ascertaining the house, not far from the cathedral, in which the
Count von Rudesheim had taken his temporary abode. Walking towards it
from the small hotel in which he had been lucky enough to find a room
disengaged--slowly, for he was still feeble--he was struck by the quiet
conduct of the German soldiery, and, save in their appearance, the
peaceful aspect of the streets. Indeed, there was an air of festive
gaiety about the place, as in an English town in which some popular
regiment is quartered. The German soldiers thronged the shops, buying
largely;